Smart Parking becoming a reality

January 25, 2017

Hate wasting time driving around looking for a parking spot? While circling the streets or parking lots, we waste time, add to traffic congestion, increase carbon emissions and, if you ultimately give up and go home, hurt the economy.

Good news! Technological advancements and standardized specifications (LoRaWAN™) that support IoT devices, including low-power wide-area networks and wireless RF technology, are now available to help get rid of this everyday hassle.

The biggest remaining challenge has been accurate and timely vehicle detection. Until now.

PNI Sensor Corporation has developed the PlacePod™, an in-ground or surface-mounted smart parking sensor that communicates with a LoRa gateway to provide real-time parking data. It provides accurate vehicle detection in parking spaces and is stable over temperature fluctuations, even in harsh environments. The in-ground sensor uses a magnetic field to detect if a car is in the space or not.

ST has worked closely with PNI to develop the drive circuitry and we provide STM32 processors that enable the PlacePod’s ability to connect over LoRa as well as Bluetooth. Ultimately, ST technology has helped enable the PlacePod to give real-time parking-space-availability updates, conduct diagnostics on itself (and provide those updates over the cloud so they can be fixed before they go out of service), and can even take payments.

Becky Oh, CEO of PNI Corp, discusses the PlacePod more in the video below.